Over the past decade, Boise’s population has exponentially increased. With new construction sites popping up on every corner, long-time residents watch the city evolve right before their eyes. John Francis, founder of Boise PhotoGrid and professor emeritus of art, design and visual studies, began documenting these changes through photography in early 2025.
Boise PhotoGrid is a photography project made up of 14 local photographers that documents Boise’s rapid growth. By dividing Boise and surrounding areas into 42 square grids, the photographers hope to capture what the city looks like now for future generations.
The group of photographers meets monthly and randomly selects a grid to shoot. At the end of the month, they get together to review the photos. The idea for the project began in 2024 after Francis saw a photo taken for the Portland Grid Project.
“I’ve always wanted to put together a group of photographers here in Boise that could support each other, have each other’s backs,” Francis said.
Francis’ journey with photography began during his undergraduate degree in graphic design, when he took a photography class. He describes his photography as situational, photographing what interests him at the time.
“It’s not necessarily something people would consider beautiful or spectacular or interesting in some way, but I find it interesting, so I take a picture of it,” Francis said.
Jason Sievers, photographer for Boise PhotoGrid and Boise State alumnus, appreciates working with other photographers and seeing different perspectives of the city.
“It’s humbling to see how everyone will go to the same part of town and see things [differently]. There’s rarely duplicate shots,” Sievers said.
Sievers dabbled in photography during his undergraduate, but discovered his passion when he got into digital photography and camera collecting after graduation.
Being assigned random grids of Boise every month allows the photographers to find unfamiliar areas and explore them with a different perspective.
“Getting to go through the city looking for inspiration, looking for the right composition, we find really cool things, “ said Michal Temkin Martinez, photographer for Boise PhotoGrid and chair of the linguistics department.
“One of my photos that I really like is a bunch of screws and bolts and nuts. Had I not been working on this, I wouldn’t have looked on the ground for anything.”
Temkin Martinez began pursuing photography as a hobby 11 years ago during sabbatical.
Since the project began in early 2025, Temkin Martinez says new development has sprung up around Boise.
“I was just reminiscing on one of the squares that we did a few months into the project [that] was close to my house,” Temkin Martinez said. “At that point it was just barren land with some piles of rocks, and now there’s houses there.”
“So much of downtown has changed into a whole different landscape,” Sievers said.
Several photographs document current developments, picturing construction laydown yards or active construction.
That acceleration of growth in Boise is part of what inspired Francis to start the project.
“It seemed like past time to start documenting what’s going on right now so future generations can look back and see what Boise was like at this point in time,” Francis said.
They are currently photographing the 20th grid. After the group photographs every grid, he hopes the project will continue on.
“The city is going to keep changing – I think it’d be great if people go back to the same places we’ve photographed before. They’ll find that there are certain things that are gone and there are new things there,” Francis said.
